ISSN 0266-7428 SCOTTISH INDUSTRIAL HISTORY Volume 17 1994 Scottish Industrial History is published annually by the Business Archives Council of Scotland and covers all aspects of Scotland's industrial and commercial past on a local, regional and trans-national basis. Prospective articles are most welcome and should be sent to Lesley Richmond, The Editor, Scottish Industrial History, The Archives, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ. Authors should apply for notes for contributors in the first instance. Back copies of Scottish Industrial History can be purchased and a list of titles of published articles can be obtained from the Editor. The views expressed in the journal are not necessarily those of the Business Archives Council of Scotland or of the Editor. © 1994 Business Archives Council of Scotland and contributors. The front cover illustration is of Port Dundas Power Station, Glasgow, and the back cover illustration is of John Street Power Station, Glasgow. (Reproduction by courtesy of RACHMS, Scottish Power Collection) Camera-ready copy prepared by Mrs R Herrphill, Glasgow University and printed by Glasgow University Printing Department, 1 Horselethill Road, Dowanhill, Glasgow G12 9LX SCOTTISH INDUSTRIAL HISTORY VOLUME 17 1994 CONTENTS Page Power Stations in Glasgow 1879-1939 David C Eve The Clyde Screw Steam Packet Company: An 1850s Venture Part 1 IS Fraser G MacHaffie An Early Dumbarton Helicopter 34 Niall MacNeill The Relocation of South Ayrshire Mining Communities after 1946: A Consequence of Coal Nationalisation? 44 Neil Earnshaw The Beginning of the Pottery Industry in Greenock 57 Heniy E Kelly The Oldham Limited Company in Scotland - The Glasgow Cotton 76 Spinning Co Ltd Dong-Woon Kim Archive Report Number 10, National Monuments Record of Scotland 90 David C Eve Harbours, Whisky and Advertising: Report of the Business Archives 94 Council of Scotland Surveying Officer, 1993-94 Kevin Wilbraham Business Archive News 99 Summary Lists of Archive Surveys and Deposits, 1992-93 102 REVIEWS P«ge IAIN JOHNSTON Beardmore Built: The Rise and Fall of a Clydeside Shipyard lain Russell 111 T R GOURVISH & The British Brewery Industry 1830-1980 Clive H Lee 112 R G WILSON GRAHAM DOUGLAS & Brick, Tile and Fireclay Industries MILES OGLETHORPE in Scotland Matthew Hume 114 SHIELA MACKAY The Forth Bridge: A Pictorial History lain Russell 115 D L G HUNTER Edinburgh's Transport: The Early Years David C Eve 115 GEORGE OLIVER Motor Trials and Tribulations: A History of Scottish Motor Vehicle Manufacture Michael French 116 IAIN SUTHERLAND Dounreay: An Experimental Reactor Establishment David C Eve 117 HENRY E KELLY Scottish Sponge Printed Pottery, traditional patterns, their manufacture and history Michael Moss 118 EDWARD J BOURKE Shipwrecks of the Irish Coast 1105-1993 Vanna Skelley 119 Power Stations in Glasgow 1879-1939 David C Eve Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland Glasgow's earliest electricity generating concerns, established in the late 1870s and early 1880s, were private companies supplying power for the first widespread application of electricity, the provision of lighting. In addition to the cost of the new technology, the cumbersome operating procedure and intense white light of carbon arc lamps made early electric lighting viable only for the illumination of large public buildings and streets. Not surprisingly the main customers of electricity companies were municipal authorities in the larger towns, railway companies and large public venues, such as theatres. Unsure of the new technology many early customers had the installation and operation of arc lamps carried out by owners/operators who sited generating plant at the customers' premises and ran it for them. In many cases the operators were also manufacturers of the equipment. In keeping with these trends the earliest electricity supply operations in Glasgow were instigated by the railway companies, who employed manufacturer/owner/operator companies to bring arc lighting to platforms. The Glasgow & South Western Railway's St Enoch Station saw six arc lamps installed in 1879 by the British Electric Co while R E Crompton and Co provided six steam engine-driven Gramme dynamos to power them. Crompton set up arc lights in Queen Street Station for the North British Railway the following year. 1 In both cases the initial arrangement was to lease the plant from the owner/operator, but the equipment was soon purchased at both sites and operated by the respective companies. Following the lead of the railway companies, the General Post Office hired Glasgow company, Muir & Mavor, to install and operate lighting in its George Square building in 1880. Plant was initially sited on the lot subsequently used by the Municipal Buildings, but soon moved to the basement of the Post Office until a small generating station at 70 Miller Street was opened in 1884.2 With the construction of the Miller Street generating station Muir & Mavor took the opportunity to move into the general public supply business. As the demand for electricity grew, it became apparent to the supply companies that distinct advantages could be gained by offering new clients power transmitted from a centralised generating station owned by the supplier of the lamps. This removed the need for generating plant at the clients' premises and reduced the cost of installing lighting. These improvements attracted new customers, especially on the domestic side, and for the supply companies opened up a whole new slice of the market. It was in this climate that Muir & Mavor commissioned the Miller Sheet station, equipped with two SOhp steam engines driving three Crompton-Burgin dynamos, and producing a 100 volt DC supply transmitted by an overhead system. Despite the small scale and primitive nature of the operation, Muir & Mavor enjoyed considerable success, supplying not only the Post Office but also nearby businesses, and were soon ready to expand fully into the realm of public supply.3 When the firm was incorporated as a limited company in June 1888 as Muir, Mavor & Coulson Ltd, it set up a second generating station at 81 John Street, this time producing a full 2,400 volt AC supply, distributed through an overhead system that required substantial transformers at the customers' premises to bring it to the usual 100 volts DC. The John Street station (see end cover) was a simple single storey building, containing all the generating plant and was equipped with a locomotive-style boiler supplying a Mirrlees & Watson compound non-condensing tandem horizontal steam engine of 200hp. The compound engine, with a back-up SOhp auxiliary engine, drove a Ferranti alternator capable of supplying 3,000 eight-candle power lamps.4 The change to alternating current (that is 'AC', the flow of which alternates in direction) for transmission purposes at the new site reflects the uncertainty in the early electrical industry concerning the choice between AC and DC (direct, or 'continuous' current, which does not undergo the regular changes in direction of flow). While AC could be transmitted at higher voltages with considerably less loss of power, DC, which was used by lighting, transport and appliances during the early stages of the electrical industry, could be stored in large batteries both at generating stations and sub-stations. This was essential to help under-powered generating stations meet peak-time demand. Despite the rapidly rising demand for power, few early investors were inclined to purchase plant capable of generating AC at an economic scale, or of constructing expensively insulated transmission systems to supply the higher voltages. Indeed, several pioneer stations were forced to close when poor demand drove production costs to unprofitable levels - Edison's station at London's Holborn Viaduct among them. However, the advent of such stations was foreseen by engineers like Ferranti, who borrowed ideas about station siting from the town gas industry for his celebrated power station at Deptford (London) in 1889. This anticipated large generating stations, planned on a grand scale, designed with effective fuel supply a priority and placed at the centre of a high voltage (10,000 volts in this case) transmission system for AC. In fact the Deptford station also fell victim to poor demand, timid investment, competition over supply areas and technical problems, but the lesson was not lost. hi the case of Muir, Mavor & Coulson Ltd the company clearly did not feel a full change to AC generation at both generating sites, or a significant increase in supply pressure, were warranted at mat stage. Interestingly, the introduction of the 2,400 volt AC supply at John Street can be traced to the emergence of Glasgow Corporation as a major customer. The 1,100 newly installed sixteen- candle power electric lamps in the Corporation's Municipal Buildings required supply at 2,400 volts to transformers in the building, and this must have prompted the change to AC in order to provide the increased pressure. This illustrates the growing influence the municipality had on privately owned electricity generation companies in the period before the Corporation took over Glasgow's electricity supply. By May 1891, Muir, Mavor & Coulson Ltd's generating plant totalled 450hp, producing 330kw for 8,904 eight-candle power lamps, and had supplied its thirty-seven customers 422,588 units in the year 1890-91.' It was this sort of success that encouraged the Kelvinside Electricity Co to enter the fray and construct its Hughenden Lane generating station in 1892. The new power station, built by the engineering firm of Anderson & Munro, was a more mechanised operation than Glasgow's other facilities, with an elevated track bringing coal trucks into discharge positions over the boiler hoppers, but was of modest size, designed purely to cope with domestic lighting in the Kelvinside area. Shortly before the establishing of the Kelvinside Electricity Co, Muir, Mavor & Coulson Ltd, possibly as a response to the prospect of competition, applied to the Board of Trade for a Provisional Order to supply the whole of Glasgow, but was challenged by a similar request from Glasgow Corporation which was enacting powers given it under the 1882 Electricity Act.